April 28 marks the National Day of Mourning and the President of the BC Federation of Labour says it is important to remember the 196 people who lost their lives while on the job in the province over the past year.

Speaking on The Jeff Andreas Show, Laird Cronk says workplace is safety is as important now as it has ever been and he says it is critical that employees have the means necessary to keep themselves safe and that includes the ability to stay home when they’re sick.

“We didn’t have protections for workers to stay home. You could be fired for being away form work sick when this pandemic started and I’m very pleased we called for and the government heard us and others changed the legislation in British Columbia so that you cannot be fired for staying home and self-isolating and doing the right thing by obeying provincial health orders.”

BC Health Minister Adrian Dix says if there was a hierarchy of measures, not working sick is of the highest level of importance. “Employers not insisting that people work sick, or that workers aren’t working sick and that is going to be a fundamental change that’s really going to be a key part of any strategy that one could possibly think of with respect to dealing with COVID-19 until there is some form of community immunity.”

Cronk says working conditions have improved, but we still have a long way to go to improve health and safety in the workplace. “Every worker in this province and this country deserves to come home at the end of the day the way they went to work. And unfortunately every year people lose their lives because of their jobs. So we not only mourn for the dead on April 28th, but we do recommit to the living.”

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